Make the Problem "Real"
Because empathy is the starting line for action
👋 Hello from the boardwalk of SHRM! After a 15-day “road show” I’m back in SD but couldn’t resist connecting with some old colleagues taking over downtown this week.
I’m writing because education wasn't designed around students but we can improve the learner experience through design. I share stories, tips, and work in progress weekly.
Why it matters: Design isn’t just a process—it’s a catalyst for clarity, connection, and change. When we center real voices and iterate in community, we don't just generate ideas—we build momentum. Here’s a snapshot from a recent design session to help bring this process to life.
Go deeper:
After a weekend in Brainerd, MN at a friend’s family lake house enjoying the summer and helping him record a music video for his Kid’s YouTube channel launching next week (I’m the T-Rex on the left), I spent time with my partner institution in Minneapolis to make meaning of ~30 hours of interviews and hundreds of insights for a design team of students, faculty, staff, and college leadership.
Aligning on insights from our research
Gallery walks are a way of helping teams build empathy to summarize our process of “Getting Curious” and serve as the foundation for understanding stakeholders. Underneath all of it is helping to make the problem real, and human, for our teams.
Along the way, I help to accelerate that meaning-making by translating key concepts into frameworks that help teams’ understand what we heard in interviews and take action on them. In this gallery I included a few visuals to bring students’ vocational journey and mindsets for first generation students to life. As I develop them, I make sure to bring them into my interviews and refine them based on real feedback from the stakeholders themselves.
What is the problem we’re trying to solve?
Along the way I work to summarize what I heard in interviews into stakeholder problem statements- a “mad-lib” format that helps uncover needs, motivations, barriers, and impacts behind the core challenges that stakeholders face. And after teams take some time to refine those problem statements and assess them based on their own understanding from the Gallery Walk we start exploring the many ways we can solve that problem by exploring “What’s Possible?”
Bringing ideas to life based on real needs
Through 60 mins of prompts aligned with the core question guiding this work and some guidance to help focus their efforts, the team came up with 150+ ideas they remixed, refined, prioritized, evaluated, and developed into concepts to potentially pursue.
Iteration based on feedback
They immediately started sharing across teams for feedback in the room to evaluate whether or not they fit the key criteria that “a solution must meet to be successful,” or design criteria.
On day 2 the team convened with college leaders to catch up on our progress and hear a few minute overview of each concept, evaluated on the design criteria and a feedback framework that teams’ could take action on in refining their work. This isn’t about deciding on which ideas to pursue, but about getting new perspectives and starting a habit of refinement through feedback from various stakeholders to build awareness, understanding, buy-in, and momentum on our progress.
What’s next
Over the weeks ahead we’ll convene to pull out the assumptions and create a testing plan for launch in the fall that helps us learn what’s working and where we should invest time, effort, coordination, and ultimately resources for the project’s success.
You can feel the palpable investment and energy at this stage about what’s possible and curiosity about what we’ll bring to life. As people co-create solutions, they invest, engage, and help make connections to build momentum in the work.
Design = Change, and as stakeholders get engaged in the process they help invest in the solution. I’m excited to share what the team has developed across stakeholders, explore where they energy, interest, and coordination lies, who needs to be involved, and make that change to help accelerate the impact on students, together.
Let’s talk about design
I’ll be moderating an upcoming panel for the Spotlight Series, a celebration of cross-border creativity hosted by World Design Capital San Diego Tijuana 2024 and Design Forward Alliance.
This special evening (July 15 from 5:30-8:30p at The Lot in La Jolla) features powerful regional stories exploring the intersection of design and innovation across education, mobility, health, and technology.
I'm honored to help shape the conversation by moderating a panel that includes:
Alex Diener – Senior Director of Global Product Design, Dexcom
Mai Thi Nguyen – Director, UC San Diego Design Lab
Colleen O'Boyle – Associate Head of School, La Jolla Country Day School
David Woodhouse – Vice President, Nissan Design America
Grateful to be included in a conversation so grounded in place—and possibility.
Insights from the Field
Bringing you voices from across education to answer:
What advice would you give to someone driving change in education?
“Ground Yourself in Purpose
Remember your why and discover your team's and partners' motivations within today's unprecedented pace of accelerated change. The change necessitated in higher education today is to be proactively relevant, nimble enough to pivot when internal and external forces demand it and committed to serving students entering and managing a rapidly changing workforce. For leaders to be effective, we must understand what motivates those involved in this work and how their contributions will shape the desired future.
Become Data-Driven Decision Makers
We must know what data tells us and identify the gaps needed to make informed decisions. My experience in student affairs has shown that data is often utilized to demonstrate what has been accomplished, but much less frequently to determine what to do next. This requires regular engagement with data, not just when reporting cycles demand it.
Create Measurable Progress with Celebration
Set metrics that provide guideposts for achievement but also invest time in celebrating what is accomplished through the change process. Make change impactful while engaging incrementally so that wins are captured and team members can see the pathway as they work to implement the future vision.”
Dr. Justin Lawhead, Assistant Vice President for Career Readiness and Post Graduate Student Success, University of South Carolina
Learning is better when it’s social.
If this post moved something in you, tap the ❤️, pass it along, or join the conversation on LinkedIn—I’d love to hear what it sparked.